Instead of supporting the Greek authorities against Macedonia for having published a book about his grandfather, French President Sarkozy should learn more about the great suffering of the Jews in Greece after the First Balkan War and the First World War, Macedonian historians say.

In this period, systematic persecution was carried out against the population that was not of Greek origin, especially the Macedonians, Jews, and Turks, who were expelled to France, Switzerland, and Spain. Greek population from Asia Minor, the so-called madziri, settled the regions that were previously populated by the non-Greek population. The terror against the Jews culminated in year 1943, when 46,000 Jews were deported to the concentration camps. French diplomats noted in their reports then that the local population, which came from Greece, yelled out "death for the Jews". French President Sarkozy should have a more objective picture of the history of Greece's problem with the name Republic of Macedonia, historians from the Institute for National History and the Republic of Macedonia State Archive stress.